Elizabeth Brown, a pixie-like figure in hot pink, was selling organic skin care products in the lobby of the Invision Sally Jobe mammography clinic in Highlands Ranch when I walked in for my first-ever breast screening last month.
The clinic was pleasantly productive in a way that ignored the obvious life-altering news we patients could soon be learning about ourselves. Like nonchalant flight attendants when the airplane is bucking in turbulence, the busyness made me think it was just me choking back a baseless panic attack — nothing a magazine and martini couldn’t mitigate.
Brown was 45 when a mammogram led to her diagnosis and eventual mastectomy. Obviously she’s a believer in regular screenings. “I would be dead,” she stated. Instead, Brown now runs a small business, Celebrating Pink, promoting natural products and what she calls a “proactive lifestyle.”
She’s found a way to blend fun with serious. So has the Wichita Clinic in Kansas, where groups of 10-15 women can book a “Mammogram Party,” complete with beauty treatments, chocolate fondue and beverages.
Comedian Steve Martin told David Letterman he does something similar. When Martin’s due for a colonoscopy, he invites celebrity pals over to play cards. Instead of beer they each drink a gallon of Colyte. Next morning they all have their procedures — a nice way to turn an unpleasant exam into a social occasion.
It’s become a blase midlife milestone for many women to have their first mammogram at the age of 40, and it’s something a government-convened advisory group no longer fully recommends.
Thank you, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, for making me feel like a rebel as I stepped up to the plate, bared my B-cups and allowed a woman named Beth to position and squash my breasts in a vice grip ’til my bust nearly burst.
Beth showed me the black and white digital images on her computer. The webbing of ducts and tissue looked like something the Hubble space telescope would photograph in a distant galaxy.
One week later, a radiologist reported my results normal, and recommended I repeat the screening in one year, despite USPSTF findings that say it isn’t necessary.
A fact sheet at the clinic said Invision Sally Jobe has not experienced a decrease in mammogram appointments following the controversial report that came out last November, nor have they been notified by any insurance companies of coverage changes.
Smashing news for those of us who believe in regular mammograms. In case you missed it, the well-respected group of independent health experts, convened by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide treatment guidelines, now advocates women under 50 and over 75 not undergo routine annual mammograms, unless they and their doctors believe it’s warranted by known risk factors.
The USPSTF also recommends women between 50 and 75 be screened every other year, rather than the customary annual screening.
Dr. Christina Finlayson, director of the Dianne O’Connor Thompson Breast Center at the University of Colorado Hospital, told me the report, which is not the only one out there, analyzed statistics on women who received regular mammograms. Finlayson said the data was a little soft. “In the decade of 40-50, the overall risk is still quite low, which is why it has been harder to show a survival benefit in that group of women. We have no good research studies to guide us on when a woman should stop screening mammography. It depends quite a bit on the overall health of the woman.”
So I can either gamble on the stats and wait until I’m 50, or belly up to the machine and use it as an annual excuse to indulge. Think I’ll subject myself to serial smashing, but next year I’ll take my mammogram with a massage, manicure and maybe a margarita.
If money’s tight, I’ll make it M&Ms and a Redbox movie with friends instead.
Kristen Kidd (kiddstories@gmail.com) is raising two sons in Highlands Ranch and writing a screenplay about Kathryn and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.
